A rising-star NYPD captain has been indicted on charges of vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving stemming from an accident that took the life of a construction worker in Queens last year.

Capt. James O’Connor, 45, was suspended from the city police force after a Queens grand jury returned the charges.

A remorseful O’Connor had sobbed his regret to a colleague after the accident: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see him. I wish I never took the car.”

O’Connor, a 15-year veteran assigned to the Housing Bureau, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted of killing a 52-year-old worker on the Throgs Neck Bridge last October.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said O’Connor, who spent several hours celebrating his promotion to the Internal Affairs Bureau, left a Bronx bar in a department vehicle and was heading to Queens to pick up his private car.

As the captain crossed the bridge at 12:40 a.m., he encountered a traffic jam and drove into a closed construction lane to avoid it.

That was where O’Connor struck worker Afif Hazim, who was sweeping asphalt from the roadway for resurfacing. The police car then crashed into a crane and came to a halt, Brown said.

O’Connor was arrested after allegedly refusing to submit to a Breathalyzer test at the scene. A blood test determined that his blood-alcohol level was .12 – above the legal .10 limit – police said.

O’Connor drove “in a closed-off construction lane at a high rate of speed while intoxicated,” said Brown.

O’Connor will be arraigned on the charges before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy on March 22.